12/03/2004: "Further responses to the Stroud verdict"

Here are some of the responses coming in to the conviction of United Methodist pastor Beth Stroud on the charge of engaging in "practices that are incompatible with Christian teachings."

From Suzy Keenan, communications director of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference: "[T]he pain and division that exists over this issue of homosexuality is not ending. This conference, like others across the church, will continue to struggle with how to be open and inclusive while living within the spirit and letter of United Methodist Church law."

Translation: We don't like this one little bit, and if it were up to us Beth Stroud would still be a United Methodist pastor. But we don't get to make the rules, which we'd change if we could.

"Right now, many members of our congregation are disappointed and angry and wonder what their continuing role in the United Methodist Church might be," said Alan Symonette, co-lay leader of First Church. He added that First Church must continue the struggle as the "conscience of the church" on behalf of gays and lesbians.

"Wonder what their continuing role" in the denomination will be? Gee, they sound just like all those divisive, narrow-minded conservatives in the ECUSA.

"We have no delight in finding a colleague guilty of the charge," said the Rev. Thomas Hall, church counsel, who presented the conference�s case against Stroud. "In this case, the evidence is clear and convincing." He said the trial court came to the proper decision "in this case and at this time."

This is a much better response to an unfortunate situation than that of the prosecutor in the Karen Dammann trial, whose response basically was, "I'm glad she was acquitted, we had no business trying her in the first place."

"It was difficult and painful for all those involved," said Stephen Drachler, spokesman for the United Methodist Church. "But the process worked in the way it was designed to work."

Certainly it worked better than it did last spring, where a jury simply put their personal preferences above the law of the church.

"In most of the church there is a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy like in the military," said the Rev. George McClain, an instructor in United Methodist studies at the liberal Union Theological Seminary in New York. "You might have activists now on the right who want to ferret out gay people and those on the other side who are gay but don't want to live a double life anymore."

Like Ms. Stroud. I don't see any conservatives sneaking into the parsonage bushes with cameras. But if a pastor wants to proclaim his or her defiance of a denomination's disciplinary standards, why should anyone stand around and play dumb?

"It's a very positive declaration that church law will be upheld," said Patricia L. Miller of Indianapolis, executive director of the Confessing Movement, an evangelical renewal movement within the 8.3 million-member denomination.

On the other side of the political and ecclesiastical battle lines, the Rev. Troy Plummer said Stroud's ouster was cause for "great sadness."

"Nobody won today," said Plummer, executive director of the Reconciling Ministries Network, an alliance of about 200 congregations and campus ministries working for full acceptance of homosexuals in the Methodist Church. "Beth lost her credentials but kept her integrity. The church kept its rules but lost its integrity."

Yeah, the church would have had a lot more integrity if the jury had said, "Forget what General Conference said. Buncha yahoos. And forget Scripture and church tradition, too. Better to do what we want to do. That would have been an act of integrity.